Category Archives: Outsourcing

“Some” would call it treason. OK, I would call it treason. Republicans—who boast of their respect for the republican value of limited authority, and who vowed to keep Obama in his Constitutional place—banded together to give President Barack Obama yet MORE executive authority. “[T]he Senate voted 60-38 to grant final approval to the fast-track bill, reports the Washington Post.

… The trade promotion bill now heads to Obama’s desk for his signature. It gives the executive branch additional powers for six years and authorizes the president, and his successor, to present trade deals to Congress for a vote on a specified timeline without lawmakers being able to amend the terms.

… Trade Promotion Authority, or TPA. This is also known as “fast-track” authority because it gives the president the ability to negotiate a deal that will receive only an up-or-down vote in Congress. Without fast track, Congress can amend the terms of the deal. You can remember that TPA is “fast track” because when you T.P. a house, you are on the “fast track” to juvenile delinquency. Or you can just call it fast track, which is easier.

Fast-track authority doesn’t apply to only one agreement. In the past, it has spanned presidencies, beginning in 1974 and lasting until the Clinton administration. It also existed during parts of both terms of George W. Bush’s presidency. From the president’s standpoint, fast-track authority is critical to negotiating agreements because he can negotiate in good faith — what he says to his negotiating partners he’s confident will be part of the final deal (if Congress approves it).

Broadcaster Mark Levin, who exulted in the Republicans’ mid-term victory only to find himself needing to trash these traitors daily—spoke to Sen. Ted Cruz on voting against the fast track deal.

“Enough is enough,” Cruz had written at Breitbart.com. “I cannot vote for TPA unless McConnell and Boehner both commit publicly to allow the Ex-Im Bank to expire—and stay expired. And, Congress must also pass the Cruz-Sessions amendments to TPA to ensure that no trade agreement can try to back-door changes to our immigration laws. Otherwise, I will have no choice but to vote no.”

As commendable as a Cruz vote against the Trade Promotion Authority (TPA) is—Levin failed to point out the following:

No bit of legislation should ever cede US sovereignty to signatory nations—not on immigration, not on self-defense, not on sentencing, not on anything.

“He should have been kept off the streets,” intoned CNN’s bimbo anchor, Brooke Baldwin.

Not one word was uttered—or allowed?—during today’s CNN segment about the fact that the man was not supposed to be in this country. It’s simple: Had Hernandez been THERE (in Mexico, presumably), chances are that Dimitri would have been HERE (with his parents).

Teletwits of amnesty such as Geraldo Rivera and Tamar Jacoby have argued again and again that the illegality of such perps—or, put more respectfully, holders of the Professional Drunk-Driver Immigration Visa—is irrelevant to the crime. “It’s not an illegal-alien story; it’s a drunk-driving story,” Geraldo once noodled on “The Factor.”

Geraldo was serious, although he should not be taken seriously. For their crushingly stupid claim to stick, Geraldo/Jacoby would have to demonstrate that, had this drunk, illegal alien been stopped at the border or been deported, his victims would have nevertheless suffered the same fate. Death, in Dimitri’s case.

As far as our CNN idiot was concerned, hers was a scoop, for she was able to seal the segment with that most penetrating of questions, pioneered by The Oprah-Anderson (as in Winfrey and Cooper) School of Journalism:

There is an alphabet soup of government agencies that ride American business. Business is buried under regulation, having to expend money and time on licenses, permits and forms for almost every transaction. What with the legal obligation to give an employee practically a lifetime of benefits, who can afford to make these gay-looking Olympic berets in the USA?

Capital flows to where it is best utilized.

I expect the PC patrol to come after me for saying that America’s Olympic team’s caps look campy.

But what’s wrong with a cowboy hat made in Texas? The gay berets cost a pretty penny and look … well, both gay and French.

To GJ: A cowboy hat is militarism to you? Where do you get that? Cowboys used to represent the (dying) great American frontier mentality. The equivalent of a “voortrekker” in South Africa.

To MP: MP is, of course, correct; there is no warrant in the Constitution or in libertarian law for state sponsorship of sports. But I always broaden the discussion to include more than libertarian justice/law—or else there would be little to discuss, as most of what the Federal Frankenstein does is unconstitutional/immoral, etc. And how dull, dour and lazy would that repetition be! But you already know that much about this writer, MP.

I’m just a simple user; not a designer. And each and every “improvement” seems to come with added complexity.

To me, a technological “improvement” means ease of operation. I long to go back several revisions of Microsoft Word and Outlook. I swear; each and every function I once achieved with one or two clicks of the mouse, now takes nine. I’ve even documented a bug or two, which, when challenged on, my better half smiles and walks away.

This weekend we were forced to replace the home’s telephones. (The free market is fabulous. Most Americans can afford a few “telephones.”) The lines kept crackling. It turns out the noise was not the fault of the old, trusted telephones, answering and fax machines.

The upshot of the improved technology: Whereas I was once able to press a single button, and by so doing activate the answering message; I now must click through a whole process to get the same result.

I am told that this added complexity and inconvenience is due to cheap innards. Extant hardware must be made to carry as much programming as possible. Designing for customer comfort is secondary to the price of the components.

Ultimately, each time I accidentally click to update my browser or any other of the things I use to function online, I dread the complexity that will ensue.

“How many grey hairs and no-hairs are in the group?” That, I am told, is a standard inquiry Taiwanese engineers make about their American counterparts in hardware engineering. Unlike their youth-worshiping American colleagues, the Chinese know that the presence of “grey hairs and no-hairs” in the collaborating high-tech group means that problems will be solved. Black hairs are unlikely to do much more than talk a good game.

The Chinese respect experience, and for good reason. It’s a fact of life that experience, so often discounted in the American workforce for fresh-faced fools, gets things done, as it has grappled with problems for longer than inexperience.

UPDATE I: Contemplationist: You might wish to refer to the post. I spoke very specifically about hardware engineers being mostly older (naturally, the field is more demanding, aka less “fun,” and thus draws fewer Millennials). However, even your exuberant, MTV-type assessment of the software field is likely also refutable, colored by a few high-profile personalities and celebrities.

UPDATE II: Contemplationist is confusing a science fair with the work place where real design is done; where the playthings that keep America’s young, twittering twits’ brainwaves from flatlining are designed. My own sources, as some of you know, work deep in the belly of the beast that makes the gadgets that Contemplationist is vaporizing about. What Contemplationist seems to be describing resembles the science fair CNN’s Soledad O’Brien once attended, where American kids, hopped-up on self-esteem, were pressing buttons, and creaming in showy enthusiasm. The “designs” they were praised to the heavens for amounted to cheap, made-in-China circuits, purchased online and stuck into cool-looking “robots.” Of course, from Soledad’s descriptions you’d think this was some kind of scientific Second Coming.

Government has skewed the job market royally. In anticipation of the windfall from Obamacare, an enormous, probably artificial, expansion of the health-care sector is underway. This could explain the fact that biomedical engineers are so sought after; the specialty is among the best career choices for 2012. Computer software engineers are also in demand.

High unemployed and contracting wages in a well-educated population should make it much more viable to do in America engineering work that was previously done offshore.

Alas, there is another state-orchestrated central plan that impedes the employment of “25,000 unemployed U.S.-born individuals with engineering degrees who have a Master’s or PhD and another 68,000 with advanced degrees not in the labor force. There were also 489,000 U.S.-born individuals with graduate degrees who were working, but not as engineers.” (The Center for Immigration Studies)

• “In 2010, there were 25,000 unemployed U.S.-born individuals with engineering degrees who have a Master’s or PhD and another 68,000 with advanced degrees not in the labor force. There were also 489,000 U.S.-born individuals with graduate degrees who were working, but not as engineers.

• There are 101,000 U.S.-born individuals with an engineering degree who are unemployed.

• There are an additional 244,000 U.S.-born individuals under age 65 who have a degree in engineering but who are not in the labor market. This means they are not working nor are they looking for work, and are therefore not counted as unemployed.

• In addition to those unemployed and out of the labor force, there are an additional 1.47 million U.S.-born individuals who report they have an engineering degree and have a job, but do not work as engineers.

• Relatively low pay and perhaps a strong bias on the part of some employers to hire foreign workers seems to have pushed many American engineers out their profession.

• There are many different types of engineering degrees. But unemployment, non-work, or working outside of your field is common for Americans with many different types of engineering degrees. (Detailed employment figures for specific types of engineers are provided” at The Center for Immigration Studies.)